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Floor Speech
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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, I informed Senate leadership of my intent to object to the Senate proceeding to Trump's nominee to serve as Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau. So I rise today to both publicly and clearly explain my hold on this nomination and to demand that the Trump administration release all remaining U.S. military forces from the unnecessary and political deployment to Los Angeles.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration did announce that they would be releasing 2,000 National Guard troops from deployment--no, not from an overseas mission, not from some disaster response to a region in need, but from a deployment against their own fellow citizens.
Around 2,000 National Guard women and men and an additional 700 marines are still in Los Angeles today. Why? Because Donald Trump needs a distraction.
Think back to about a month ago. The President found himself at the lowest point of his Presidency thus far. He was drowning in negative headlines, everything from his failing tariff wars that continue to raise prices and costs on working families, to Vladimir Putin embarrassing him on the world stage, to a messy, public breakup with Elon Musk. So in order to change the news cycle, which he does so often, to shift the headlines away from his many, many failures, President Trump chose to ramp up ICE raids in California.
When Californians took to the streets to exercise their First Amendment rights by peacefully protesting, Trump responded by federalizing the California National Guard, and then later the U.S. Marines were ordered in to intimidate the people of Los Angeles.
It was the first time that the National Guard has been deployed against the wishes of the State's Governor since 1965.
None of these servicemembers signed up to become a political prop, but Trump has put them in this impossible position that he knew would escalate tensions in the region and take them away from their critical missions elsewhere.
That is exactly why, in late June, a few weeks ago, the head of U.S. Northern Command requested that Secretary Hegseth return at least 200 troops from the National Guard's wildfire unit who were stuck in Los Angeles for Trump's political purposes, because every day that those troops were unnecessarily deployed to Los Angeles was another day that their primary mission went unmet. We are talking about undermining firefighting and fire mitigation efforts as we are approaching peak wildfire season. This is dangerous and unnecessary.
Because the Trump administration continued to keep thousands of troops in Los Angeles, 2 weeks ago, I exercised my constitutional duty as a U.S. Senator to advise and consent to nominations in order to block the nomination of LTG Thomas Carden.
Lieutenant General Carden currently serves as second in command of Northern Command, the combatant command that has overseen Trump's orders to militarize Los Angeles.
But I want to be very clear about something. My objection is about more than Lieutenant General Carden. None of what we are seeing in Los Angeles through this militarization is business as usual. Deploying the Guard against the wishes of the Governor, against the wishes of the mayor, and against even the wishes of local law enforcement--the sheriff, the police chief--none of that is normal.
So today, I am making it clear to all of my colleagues of my intent to oppose any expedited consideration of this nomination until two conditions are met:
First, every last guardsman and marine must be released from this deployment in Los Angeles. Stop militarizing our cities and using our servicemembers as political pawns.
Second, I will maintain my hold until I have been given sufficient commitments and assurances from this administration that no guardsmen from other States will be sent to enforce the President's political demands on California.
Until both of these conditions are met, I will maintain my hold on this nomination.
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